“Go, you mindless sheep” Fynn snarled down at them. He turned to the gate guard. “Send a runner to the manse to alert the abbot and the Patriarch. Get all of the archers up here, and have everyone else go through the streets. Tell the people—er, tell them—” He fumbled into silence. “What shall I tell them, sir?”
The captain inhaled, trying to remember his training. “I don’t know, tell them to begin storing water in vessels, that’s it—and send two riders out of the gate and down the entrance-way to tell the merchants and innkeepers to get inside the city walls immediately—and whatever pilgrims are milling about out there. Hurry; we have to seal the gate when they get within range.”
“What is happening, sir?” the young soldier asked, his eyes glazed with fright. “Why is the Sorbold army marching on the holy city?”
“I’ve no idea—but that’s irrelevant. I only know that we are not prepared to withstand a siege.” Fynn looked over the wall again and went pale. “Get word to the manse above all else— perhaps the Patriarch will know what to do, or he can send a message for help from other quarters. Make haste. And pray.” The gate guard saluted and climbed down the ladder to the streets below, pushing aside a gawking throng as he made his way through them to the guard barracks. The captain of the guard turned back to the south. The army was advancing unhurriedly, but now they were near enough for him to hear the war toms echoing off the mountains as they came. There was something terrifying about the sound of those drums, deep and slow in rhythm but relentless and insistent.
The stone on the wall began to rumble slightly as the ground began to pick up the vibrations from the approaching horses and wagon wheels.
He continued to stare at the coming army until the archers he had summoned mustered around and below him. He looked up and shook off the shock that was beginning to numb the edges of his mind, making him feel wooly and thick-headed.
“Get into position, and prepare to train your arrows on anyone attempting to breech the wall or the gate,” he directed. “Aim at the closest first, and keep firing into the same target until he dies. If they bring a battering ram—and they will need to if they think they are going to force open that gate— keep firing at the men bearing it first; as long as they don’t get the gate open, you can keep the rest of the army out.” The archers, largely inexperienced in conflict, nodded, trembling. Fynn shouted down to one of the footguards. “You—get to the smithy, tell them we are in need of whatever coals or hot pitch they can locate. Use the braziers from the temples and the basilica if need be, use incense, anything, but get something up here that can repel an assault on the gate.” The guard ran off.
With the wall fortified as best as it could be, the captain climbed down the ladder and into the streets just as the basilica bells stopped ringing the musical hour and began toiling an alarm. The sound rang out over the entire city, emanating from the base of the Spire itself, and carrying an authority with it that no other signal had.
At this the population panicked. The mighty gate was dragged open for the last time, and a sea of humanity and animal carts rushed in, stampeding the people already in the streets. The gate tenders tried to push the gates closed again but the throng was too great; they trampled anyone or anything in their way in their desperate rush to gain shelter against the army that now was in sight even from beneath the barricade.
“Get inside the basilica—take shelter there,” the captain of the guard shouted, but his words were drowned in the cacophony of the multitude pressing into Sepulvarta. “Get me a spyglass,” he said to one of the soldiers attempting to gain control of the crowd and failing. The soldier saluted and ran off, returning many minutes later, his regalia torn by contact with the crowd. He handed the instrument to the captain, who climbed the battlement again, extended the spyglass, and looked into the distance.
The insignia of the column at the lead appeared to be that of the Mountain Guard of Jierna’sid, the emperor’s own regiment. They were clad in banded mail and helm, with heavy crossbows and scimitars standard issue. The spring sun as it rose glinted off their armor and helms, reflecting the light back in blinding waves. The captain’s stomach cramped. At the head of the column a soldier was walking, the army in step with him. The captain adjusted the spyglass, as it was distorting his vision of the leader. He looked again, and realized, to his horror, that in fact the glass was reading true. The man at the head of the column appeared to be almost a giant, standing easily ten feet tall. He had a flat aspect; in fact, for as little definition there was to his face, he might as well have been made of stone. His movements were awkward and lumbering, his face primitive, but his pace was sure. That soldier seemed almost oblivious of the columns marching behind him; his face was a mask, his expression unchanging.
He was also immensely tall, almost twice the size of the other soldiers, who were following in his train as if he were a hero of renown, or a demi-god.
For all that Sepulvarta was a place of religious oddities, strange ceremonies, and even the occasional miraculous happening, the captain of the guard felt that what he was witnessing was so absurd that he must be dreaming. In the thousand years or so since its founding, the city of Sepulvarta had never seen aggression, primarily because it was understood to be the All-God’s city; the thought that anyone would attack a holy seat was almost too bizarre to comprehend, especially adherents to that faith, as the Sorbolds were. Yet the columns were advancing.
A line of stragglers remained outside the wall, watching the approaching army with a mixture of trepidation and fascination.
“Get those idiots inside the gate!” He grabbed one of the archers. “Aim at the feet of one of them and let fly. They’ll move, or they’ll be left outside.” He turned to the gate tenders. “Prepare to close the gates!”
The call went down the wall as the archer took aim, then fired into the crowd. His arrow wobbled off the string and sliced through the leg of a peasant woman gawking at the approaching army.
Pandemonium ensued.
With a crushing swell, the remaining crowd beyond the wall surged forward, pushing everyone, including women and small children, into a wedge. Screaming, the phalanx of people outside the city swarmed those lingering inside the gates who were waiting for the narrow inner streets to clear. The captain of the guard watched in numb dismay as blood began to flow, children were trampled, violence broke out among the former pilgrims turned refugees.
“Get to the basilica—take shelter there,” he repeatedly shouted, the noise of the mayhem drowning him out.